“Lovely! lovely! It looks exactly like wings. It makes me quite creepy. Don’t come out if Mellicent is alone whatever you do. She would be scared out of her seven senses. Just float gently along toward them, and keep your hands forward so as to hide your face. They will recognise you if you don’t.” “Oh, if you can see my face, we must have less light. There are too many candles. I’ll put out the ones on the mantelpiece. Stay where you are and tell me when it is wight,” Rosalind cried gaily, and ran across the room on her tiny pink, silk slippers. So long as she lived Peggy Saville remembered the next minutes; to the last day of her life she had only to shut her eyes and the scene rose up before her, clear and vivid as in a picture. The stretch of empty room, with its fragrant banks of flowers; the graceful figure flitting across the floor, its outline swathed in folds of misty white; the glimpse of a lovely, laughing face as Rosalind stretched out her arm to reach the silver candelabra, the sudden flare of light which caught the robe of gauze, and swept it into flame. It all happened within the space of a minute, but it was one of those minutes the memory of which no years can destroy. She had hardly time to realise the terror of the situation before Rosalind was rushing towards her with outstretched hands, calling aloud in accents of frenzied appeal— “Peggy! Peggy! Oh, save me, Peggy! I’m burning! Save me! Save me!” (_To be continued._) THE GIRL’S OWN QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS. THE EXAMINERS REPORT ON THE FIRST TWENTY-FOUR QUESTIONS. This competition has been taken up with enthusiasm, and such a number of carefully-prepared papers have been sent in, covering questions 1-24, that we anticipate that this will prove one of the most successful trials of ability and perseverance we have had for a long time. It is very gratifying, for a girl who takes part in it not only gets to know a great many facts of interest, but has excellent practice in the useful art of finding out—an art which she will discover many opportunities for exercising in after life. That the competition may prove still more serviceable, we give here a series of notes on each of the twenty-four questions sent in up to December 30th. Girls will be able in this way to make out when they answered rightly and when wrongly, and, when they did not answer at all, what they might have answered had they only known. General remarks on the competition and on the competitors must, of course, be delayed till all the papers have been sent in and been examined. * * * * * =1. Did a Queen ever voluntarily lay down the sceptre and retire into private life?=